Fighting for what?
June 18th, 2012 at 11:00 am by David FarrarStuff reports:
Lobby group Save TVNZ7 has hired high-profile constitutional lawyer Mai Chen to examine whether the Government has acted lawfully in its decision to axe funding for the free-to-air channel.
The media are so gullible at times. This, like most of the Save TVNZ7 campaign, is a media stunt. The decision to not grant additional funding to TVNZ7 (Labour only granted limited duration funding) was taken well over a year ago – and well before the last election. If there was any serious issue about the legality of doing so, then it would have been challenged at the time. The channel ceases in 12 days, and this is just about whipping up a cheap headline. Well not necessarily cheap – Mai’s normal hourly fee could probably fund TVNZ7 for a month 
This is a joke – I have no idea what Mai’s fees are).
While I am not a lawyer, and have great respect for Mai’s public law knowledge, I have to say I struggle to see how one can say the Government may have acted illegally in deciding not to fund something. Again, if there was a serious question of this I would have expected it to be looked at well before now.
It was vital that public service television was retained because without it New Zealand was left with only commercial broadcasters.
I agree. And we have masses of public service television funded by NZ on Air – such as Media 3 which will now enjoy a larger audience and more influence.
“That means our news is prey to commercial interests and everything is simplified because commercial programmes don’t want anyone to change channel.
Which is exactly why TVNZ7 was doomed. It was on a broadcaster which had no interest in having people watch it. How many times do you have to state the obvious – a broadcaster can not be both a commercial broadcaster and a public service broadcaster.
If you want public service television, there are really only two sustainable models. The first is the NZ on Air contestable funding model which allows all broadcasters to air public service programmes that are not commercially viable.
The second is a dedicated stand alone broadcaster. That will cost around $200m to $250m or so a year.
Labour’s broadcasting spokeswoman, Clare Curran, said public broadcasting was crucial for New Zealand’s culture and heritage.
“The Government doesn’t seem to understand there are many thousands of New Zealanders who believe public broadcasting is a right of citizenship.”
Well first of all it is no such thing. Your rights are freedom of speech, liberty etc etc. Please do not invent rights.
What I would agree with Clare on is that public broadcasting is a good thing. Just as funding the conservation estate is a good thing. I don’t know any National Minister who thinks the Government should not fund public broadcaasting.
But that is very different from trying to have TVNZ be both a commercial and public service broadcaster. Everyone from Ian Fraser on has said it does not work. How many times do you need to fail to understand that?
Broadcasting Minister Craig Foss said TVNZ7 was set up with time-limited funding in 2006 to encourage people to “go digital” ahead of the digital switchover.
“The Government values Kiwi content and invests $230m each year on public broadcasting and supporting New Zealand content on our screens.”
So it is not a choice between public broadcasting and no public broadcasting. It is not even much of a debate over the level of investment in public broadcasting. It is a debate about how best to deliver it. And the TVNZ7 model is not the way to do it.
Recent audience data shows TVNZ7′s audience has grown from 863,100 last year to 1.47 million, comparable with the audience of Maori Television.
Oh for fuck’s sake if you are going to quote a dodgy stat, at least define what it is. This is “cumulative” monthly audience which means someone who tuned in to one programme for 15 minutes gets treated the same as someone who watches a channel for five hours a day, 30 days a month. It is a near meaningless statistic.
Kiwiblog’s total cumulative audience is 2.3 million or so, if I wanted to inflate my numbers.
With television, always ask for the actual population share of their highest rating programme. Does TVNZ7 have a single programme that ever attracted over 1% of the population?
June 18th, 2012 at 11:02 am
Lived in NZ for 20 years, I think I watched TVNZ7 twice.
Vote:June 18th, 2012 at 11:04 am
“While I am not a lawyer, and have great respect for Mai’s public law knowledge, I have to say I struggle to see how one can say the Government may have acted illegally in deciding not to fund something.”
IAAL, and I struggle also. I note that there is no statement that a legal challenge WILL be filed … Chen is being hired to see if there are grounds for one. And a good few billing hours later, the answer will come back as a “probably not – but if you want to throw more money at it, I’m always game!!!!”
Vote:June 18th, 2012 at 11:13 am
The good thing about this campaign, misguided as it is, is that people are talking about public service television. Every Save TVNZ7 meeting has been less about TVNZ7 and more about public broadcasting in general.
TVNZ7 was doomed from day one, it was never going to “strengthen the commercial position” of TVNZ. Quite the opposite.
I would like to see an entirely new channel, completely funded by a ring-fenced levy on pay television. Sky TV is massively unregulated and TVNZ doesn’t ask for a cent for Sky to broadcast 1 & 2. Which apparently is unique in the world. It would have to be funded through a series of new taxes, not from the general fund, for people to vote for it. It should be called NZBC and operate out of Avalon
Vote:June 18th, 2012 at 11:32 am
There’s a simple test, genuine rights don’t cost anything. If there’s a pricetag attached to the “right” in question, it’s bogus.
Vote:June 18th, 2012 at 11:41 am
“There’s a simple test, genuine rights don’t cost anything. If there’s a pricetag attached to the “right” in question, it’s bogus.”
So … I want to hold a protest march on Queen Street to show my opposition to the Electoral Finance Act and the way this restricts my freedom of speech. By doing so, I will stop traffic going about its commercial business, distract shoppers from spending in retail outlets, and tie up the time of the salaried police officers needed to carry out traffic management duties.
Does this “pricetag” attached to my march mean I have no “genuine right” to carry it out?
Vote:June 18th, 2012 at 11:50 am
@AG – absolutely.
You have a right to free speech, you have no “right” to grandstand and hold up an entire city to make a song and dance about what you want to say. That’s why people negotiate with the council and the cops if they want to have a protest march, but they don’t worry about being arrested and locked up for criticising the Government.
Vote:June 18th, 2012 at 12:12 pm
If there is some kind of funding criteria or rules attached to the consideration of applications, in theory any decision by the Government could be reviewed in the High Court. Potentially there could be a ‘public interest’ aspect but it does seem a bit like whistling in the wind.
Vote:June 18th, 2012 at 12:41 pm
My concern with TV7 is that it seems invariably public service broadcasters get captured by the left and become mouthpieces for them. EG ABC in Australia, BBC in the UK. We already see the usual suspects such as Russell Brown and Linda Clarke at TV7. The few docos I’ve turned into there have been biased left wing nonsense.
Vote:Time to cut out the cancer before it spreads.
June 18th, 2012 at 12:41 pm
Never watched TV7 – what Sky channel was it on?
Vote:June 18th, 2012 at 1:01 pm
Never watched TV7 – what Sky channel was it on?
77. Hard to find out about because it was never in any program listings or cross channel promotions.
onthenumber8: The good thing about this campaign, misguided as it is, is that people are talking about public service television. Every Save TVNZ7 meeting has been less about TVNZ7 and more about public broadcasting in general.
I agree, that’s what I saw at the Dunedin meeting. Clare was still promoting hope of a 3 week miracle but Julie Anne Genter conceded an immediate rescue was very unlikely but it was worth pushing for public service TV. And my speech was mostly on ideas on what to do from 1 July to achieve something.
Vote:June 18th, 2012 at 1:02 pm
It’s all the way up at channel 77.
It’s still on for a few more weeks, I recommend Backbenches Wednesday night at 9:05pm.
Vote:June 18th, 2012 at 1:09 pm
I’d like to see where the estimate of $200-250 million per year for a public service TV channel comes from. I don’t think Maori TV costs that much, and it’s already the de facto national TV channel.
Vote:June 18th, 2012 at 1:10 pm
They should take it to the Waitangi Tribunal. If Maori can have a fully subsidised public service channel then Non-Maori should have one too. It’s not just Maori culture that needs to be preserved from foreign corporations and foreign media influence but non-Maori New Zealand culture too.
Vote:June 18th, 2012 at 1:34 pm
$200-$250 million is quite an out there figure in a NZ scenario. Maori TV costs $28million, TVNZ7 cost $18 million per year (from memory).
The reason TVNZ7 is so cheap is that they used the existing infrastructure of TVNZ, re-hashed old TVNZ shows and had limited original content. If it was a standalone channel it would cost a lot more, but I can’t see it costing anywhere near this much.
In order for the government to reconcile the two ideals (commercial and public service), they would have to sell TVNZ and use the proceeds to fund a new service, which I don’t have a problem with. Either that or use the dividend stream from TVNZ to help fund the new channel, which would inevitably affect the profitability of TVNZ. Catch 22.
Vote:June 18th, 2012 at 2:54 pm
@James Stephenson,
You completely miss my point. Even if a protest march is permitted and fully approved, holding it on Queen Street COSTS SOCIETY MONEY. So if your criteria for whether we have rights or not is “does it cost anything?’, then we have no right to march in the streets. Hence, no right to get a permit/approval to march.
Or, to spell it out in simple words, there’s no such thing as a “free” right.
Vote:June 18th, 2012 at 4:03 pm
A great reason to scrap Maori TV too
Vote:June 30th, 2012 at 2:04 pm
$650 million spent on TV and radio advertising in
Vote:2011 , that is paid for buy us i icreased cost of the products we buy, rightwing nuts forget that The current cesspit system that passes for NZ Media is costing all of us a fortune…
June 30th, 2012 at 2:12 pm
Right wing bigots can always see their views reflected in Worthless gossip rags like ‘The Herald ‘with its endless wittering on about Auckland housing bubbles designed to provide puff pieces for Real Estate advertisers…The licence funded BBC provides any programming worth watching or its commercial equivalent ITV which is kept ‘Honest’ by comparison with its licence funded rival.
Vote: